Online information seeking for prescription drugs

Marketing through advertising is the conventional mechanism for launching of most products. However, direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs is permissible in only a few countries and wherever permissible, is subject to regulations. Therefore, the need to understand how consumers search for prescription drug information is of critical importance for development of decision systems in advertising and marketing. The internet is a powerful media for dissemination of information. Moreover, national DTCA regulations have little control over communication through the internet. In this research, we investigate individuals’ online information seeking behaviour for prescription drugs. Specifically, we identify if individuals with certain demographic profiles, risk perceptions, health concerns have different likelihoods for information seeking. Given the growth in the amount of internet spam, we are particularly interested in investigating if exposure to prescription drug spam motivates individuals to go to the internet to seek further information about prescription drugs.